Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Bullying and My Predictive Abilities — New York at Risk

If there is anyone who started with me when I made my first post in July, 2002 you will know that one topic that has come up repeatedly is my watch on the movement to have some state enact an anti-bullying law. It is much easier now than in the early days, because of Professor David Yamada's Minding the Workplace Blog, which covers those developments regularly.

In addition to being a tenured professor and Director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University School of Law in Boston, he is also the author of the model Healthy Workplace Act, which has been the basis for most of the bills which have been introduced in various legislatures (23 states according to the Healthy Workplace Campaign website).

The first was just 10 years ago. Already in 2013, there have been eight states where some version has been introduced. Professor Yamada has an update in this post, Healthy Workplace Bill: March 2013 update.

In that article David notes that he and I have had a cordial disagreement over the years over the need for this legislation, as he also notes my recent sigh that I was becoming resigned to some state adopting such a cause of action much quicker than I would have ever thought when I first posted on the topic in January 2003.

Hopefully, that prediction will turn out as accurate as my March Madness brackets do, the latest versions of which are less than 72 hours from demolishment.

But, if I were to go even further out on a limb and predict which state, New York would not be a bad prediction. Why? Well because on May 12, 2010, the New York Senate became the first house of any state legislative body to pass anti-bullying legislation which would create a private cause of action. Anti-Bullying Legislation Passes NY Senate. The bill did not pass the Assembly and so died at the end of the legislative session.

However, new legislative session and in the 150 member Assembly, AB 4965 was introduced on February 13th, with 74 sponsors. (Do the math, it is not pretty for opponents.) The companion bill S3863 was introduced in the Senate on February 25.